One third of America is ruining Thanksgiving for the rest of us by ignoring COVID-19 — but it's easy to see why they have given up

 


  • Public health experts have been warning for months that Thanksgiving dinner is the perfect place for the coronavirus to spread, and suggesting people limit their feasts, just for this year, to single-household affairs.
  • Still, more than a third of Americans surveyed by Insider said they're not changing anything at all about how they run Thanksgiving 2020, despite the looming virus threat.
  • Many said they are traveling, and most said they are going to be mixing households without wearing masks or opening up windows.
  • By next year, vaccines will be widely available, making it very wise to hold off until Thanksgiving 2021 to do a big spread.
  • Still, it's difficult to blame Americans for doing the holidays-as-usual this year, given the utter failure of the country's leaders to rally together and get the virus under control in any way at all yet.
  • That is why, while empathetic to our innate desires to mingle, leading public health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have said time and time again: Stay home this Thanksgiving if you can, gather outdoors if you must, and keep any interactions with other households brief, small, masked, and well-ventilated.
  • Yes, a third of the country is undermining the collective good faith efforts of everyone else to stay isolated, and keep our medics, essential workers, elders, and other vulnerable individuals safe.
  • But it would be trite to see this third of the country as malicious people. Everyone is mentally and emotionally exhausted, from going months without "normal" family connections.
  • So, let's not direct our ire at our neighbors who may not be doing the right thing around the table this year. But, at the same time, don't let their indifference to the virus infect your home. You could truly save someone's life if you avoid big Thanksgiving celebrations until 2021.

  • One doctor says he doesn't blame patients for doing Thanksgiving as normal this year, he blames our leaders

  • The blame, he says, lies with public officials, who haven't made it clear how to stay safe during the pandemic, or provided the good leadership, testing, and contact tracing required to squash the virus down across the US. 
  • ALL THIS AND MORE:
  • https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-ignore-covid-19-to-have-thanksgiving-as-usual-2020-11


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It

Image
Here’s what Russia’s 2020 disinformation operations look like, according to two experts on social media and propaganda. By   DARREN LINVILL   &   PATRICK WARREN Internet trolls don’t troll. Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don’t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don’t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren’t  “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,”  as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren’t a threat to Western democracy. Professional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously. MORE: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/russia-troll-2020-election-interference-twitter-916482/ P...
Read more

The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term

Image
The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term   (Photo: Photos: Getty Images) Americans will almost certainly go to bed on Nov. 3 without knowing who won the presidential election. Since millions of people will vote by mail, constraints on time and resources will slow ballot counting into potentially a weeks-long process. Voting patterns suggest it’s likely that President  Donald Trump  could end Election Day in the lead in certain key states, only to be overtaken by Democratic opponent  Joe Biden  when more votes are tallied.  This could create a nightmare scenario during the three months stretching from Election Day to the Jan. 20 inauguration: a battle on the state and congressional level over who is the legitimate winner. This could include Congress reconvening on Jan. 6, presided over by Vice President  Mike Pence , with no consensus over its potential role in choosing the next president. This...
Read more

When Life Hands You Lemons

Image
 It's like this folks: sometimes your mind goes blank. Happens more than usual with me of course. Take this forum for instance. I wanted to post something today and couldn't think of a topic. At least not a non-sexual one and we know sexual ones lately have been frowned upon.  Then along comes one of our regulars and complains about something. Well, they might not say it was a complaint, just an observation, but it was a complaint. A minor one. It has something to do about being able to make something out of nothing. Sort of like me this morning, how to make a thread out of an empty head? But they (notice I am using the correct pronoun, not saying he or she), by what they said got me thinking. What I thought was: Not sure if that is the actual saying, if I remember correctly, I remember the saying going something like this: Umm, no, I don't think the saying I am thinking of goes that way either, maybe ONE of you good folks can remind me how the saying goes. Either way, when...
Read more